Chapter 13 #3
“I don’t, I don't have answers.” I can barely think of anything outside of Niko.
They’ve been drugging me off and on ever since this guy broke into my RV, all so they could take turns raping me before they brought me out to Niko.
It’s their fault my ability to speak is so impaired and my vocabulary is stuck on a simple few words.
How the fuck am I supposed to give them anything after that?
“I… I don’t know what you’re… What you’re talking about. ”
He grabs me by the hair and jerks my head up just as it lolls, holding my roots and chin to force my stare on my soulmate. “Do you need more incentive than that?”
More tears stream down my face as I watch them heat up another poker, pressing it to his skin and twisting until it’s ripped away from him. I can see little pieces of flesh tear from his back, sticking to the hot metal before the same asshole kicks him in the ribs and does it again.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please, stop. We don’t know anything.”
“Let her out.”
I blink repeatedly as the whipping stops and the stockade is abruptly opened.
The bottom swings down to the platform, crashing against the wooden pallets before I drop to my hands and knees.
The man to my right kicks me in the ribs, sending me to my side before I fall off the edge in a heap as pain radiates through every inch of my body.
But I don’t stay there, I can’t.
As quickly as I can, I pull myself along the floor, dragging my bruised and bloody body toward Niko because I have to. I have to get to him, have to touch him. If we’re going to die, I’m going to hold him in my arms while we do, and I don’t give a shit how I make that happen.
I will claw my way through broken glass and crawl over burning coals just so I can hold my soulmate in my arms as we’re sent to the gates of hell.
The room tilts with every pull of my fingers, every scrape of nails against the concrete but I’m finally close enough to reach him.
I use every ounce of strength I have left to sit up and tug him into my lap, pulling his battered body against mine until I can see his face, relieved that my omega is still breathing.
“I love you,” I whisper through my tears, pushing his blond hair matted with blood from his face as a few men train their guns on us.
I cling to him the best I can as I repeat my words.
Whispering them until my throat is dry and hoarse.
I need him to know, need Niko to remember what he is to me and how I feel about him.
Regardless of what happens to us, he needs to know that. “I love you.”
“What the fuck…”
I look up as the leader of the group walks to the edge of the light, slowly pulling his beretta from the back of his cargo pants as he stops. He holds out one hand, almost as if he’s placating someone or something while he speaks too low for anyone to hear.
I hold Niko tighter as a level of unknown confusion blankets the warehouse, tension filling it as a few men slowly join their leader.
I just want this to be over. I want them to hurry up and kill us or do whatever the hell else they intend to do because I’m done. This is the last time I let anyone make a victim out of me, and it sure as fuck is the last time someone tries to make a corpse out of any more of my mates, either.
I’m fucking done with all of this.
I waited too long. I didn’t follow through, and it got us here.
This is my fault. I don’t care what or who these assholes are looking for, I don’t give a shit over the why because this is all on me.
I didn’t move us fast enough. I lost sight of why I’m out here to begin with, I got wrapped up in the possibility of a new future and the hope that comes with it and once again, I could lose my mate because of it.
All of that changes now.
One way or another, it changes this very second.
I am fucking done.
Suddenly, the bald guy and his men jump back, making me flinch as they start walking backward in our direction and cocking their guns in front of them.
“That’s a good doggy. It’s okay.”
I frown as they move quicker, weapons raised as they nearly trip over Niko and I, which is when their fear physically manifests in front of me.
Three of the biggest dogs I have ever seen trot forward, their nails tapping the concrete as they bare their teeth in foamy snarls.
They have big studded collars with tags but no leashes, so they belong to someone who cares enough to do that, even if they’ve seemingly misplaced their pets.
I bet if they knew what their pups wandered in on, they’d shit.
Then again, with dogs like these, their owner might have seen worse.
Oh my god, these dogs are fucking huge.
The one in the middle is a doberman, that’s not hard to tell but it’s the only breed I’m familiar with. The other two? I have no idea what they are other than huge and extremely pissed off.
Pissed off and a little bloodthirsty.
“Nice doggy,” the bald guy says as he aims at the doberman. It’s an obvious kill shot, even to someone like me, but he hesitates to take it and I’m not sure why if he’s as scared as he seems to be. “Stay right there, that’s it, stay.”
The dogs aren’t moving.
They haven’t been, not since they backed them up to where Niko and I are. They’ve been standing still outside of the circle, growling and foaming at the mouth but they haven’t moved a muscle. Almost like they’re waiting. For what, that’s something else I don’t know, but that’s what it seems like.
But who the hell would they be waiting for?
As if the universe decided to answer my question, loud, heavy footsteps follow the same path the dogs took, coming right toward us without a fraction of urgency. Slow and steady, confident. Dangerous.
Those footsteps hold significance somehow, and the closer they get, the more I believe that.
Niko shifts in my arms, turning his face toward my stomach before he whimpers then takes a deep breath. He turns toward the dogs as he takes another, becoming as restless as I’m starting to feel despite both of us being on the brink of collapse.
The men around us are silent. Silent and full of confusion and fear as a hooded figure slowly emerges from the dark, demanding submission and surrender with his presence alone.
He is huge.
Well over six and a half feet tall. Light on his feet for someone who has to be close to three hundred pounds.
He moves with purpose, with an unwavering dominance.
He’s dressed in all black, very little of him showing from under the hood, and between that and how random his entrance is, it makes him look like death incarnate.
The Grim Reaper.
A demon sent from the pits of hell.
One that smells like wild orchids and something dark and spicy.
“Who the fuck are you?” The bald guy raises his gun from the doberman to aim it at the mysterious man. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t do anything but stop behind the dogs and stand there like some ominous brick shithouse.
“You aren’t taking them if that’s what you’re here for. That reward money is mine.” The leader nods to me and Niko as he steps in front of us. “I earned it.”
Still nothing.
The man isn’t even acknowledging whether or not he can hear him.
He can, I’m almost certain of that, but you wouldn’t know it and this man clearly does not give one single fuck to confirm or deny.
“Say something,” the bald asshole hisses. “Say something, you stupid son of a bitch.”
That’s when he finally does.
“Charon.”
The strange word rumbles through his chest, a low growl filled with rage and hate as it spills from his lips. And it’s that one word that unleashes the hell he brought with him.
Before they know what hit them, all three dogs attack the men in front of us, moving like lightning through the spotlight, lunging at anyone within range.
The doberman goes right for the bald guy, its teeth sinking into his inner thigh, biting repeatedly until the femoral artery explodes between its jaws, the blood spraying through the hole in his pants as he screams in pain.
The other two dogs follow suit, tearing into vital parts of the men standing around us, hunks of flesh and muscle landing on the cement floor, blood streaking and splattering against it while they continue attacking one after another as their handler steps under the light.
Gunshots ring out as his dogs unleash total carnage, and that’s when this man joins them.
He raises his right hand to reveal his own weapon, firing quick rounds from his SIG and taking down several of our captors with single shots in the head or chest. No hesitation. He doesn’t waver. The mysterious man just points and shoots, the men dropping like flies each time.
I hold Niko tighter as I watch the man walk through the space, firing until his gun is empty then tossing it aside before he produces two hunting knives from inside his sleeves.
I had no idea that many men had taken us, that the group was this big but it’s like they’re crawling out of the woodwork, rushing at the beast who’s decreasing their numbers faster than I can fully comprehend.
He sends both knives sailing through the air in different directions, but they each find their new home in eye sockets of different targets, the precision beyond deadly and scary accurate for someone who wasn’t even looking.
He steps over us as he keeps advancing on them, grabbing the guy to my right and literally throwing him across the room, not flinching or slowing down as he takes two bullets to the bicep.
He turns on the one who shot him, grabbing him by the throat before dragging him toward the area where Niko was kept.
The beast of a man takes his gun and uses it on anyone in his path then he crushes the windpipe of the man in his hand and drops him, his sights now set on the bastard who assaulted both me and my sweet mate.
He whistles low and his dogs kick it up a notch, working together to literally rip apart anyone left.
Their screams echo off the walls, filling the room as the biggest of the dogs grabs an ankle while the others grab wrists, shaking and tugging, tearing until bones pop and blood spurts from the joints they’re chewing through.
“No, no please!”
My eyes shift to the mystery man as he straps the asshole to the cross face down, his back facing us while the ropes tighten to the point of ripping skin and drawing blood.
The beast says nothing as he works, stripping the man of his pants even after his legs are tied down.
He moves to the small fire pit, the one this group wheeled out to heat the iron they used on Niko, and he drags it over to the cross with a threatening, high pitched screech.
The beast grabs the poker used on my sweet mate’s back and sticks it in the flames, turning it slowly until the end is glowing bright orange all while staring silently at his next victim.
The man strapped down starts to cry as he tries in vain to see what the hulking man is doing, craning his neck as he begs for his life, but he doesn’t have to do either of those things. He’s going to find out soon enough.
The beast flattens his free hand against the middle of the man’s back, pushing so hard the cross breaks, forcing the bastard to bend just below the waist in a way that isn’t natural and causes a sickening pop to ring out around us, and without so much as a grunt, he takes that hot poker and rams it up the man’s ass in one steady movement.
He screams briefly, the sound cut short as the iron disappears almost all the way to the handle, blood and smoke pouring from his body as pieces of his skin and muscles start to sizzle.
My head spins as I watch, as the beast of a man grabs a second poker and pierces the back of the bastard’s skull, the loud crack and squish enough to have me swaying in place.
I’m going to pass out.
I don’t know if it’s from watching this man and his dogs obliterate a small army, or from the pain that’s starting to creep in now that my adrenaline has begun to crash.
Either way, I know I’m about to go down, and I have to be grateful that both Niko and I are too out of it to find out if we die from our injuries, a dog attack, or a brute of a man who wears chaos and destruction like a fucking mask and cape.